Smoked salmon fillets in oil. (Photo: Bumble Bee)

Bumble Bee agrees to modify canned salmon misleading packaging

Bumble Bee Foods, LLC agreed to modify the packaging of its canned salmon filets in order to avoid the progress of a proposed class action in California federal court.

The litigant was a consumer who accused Bumble Bee of misrepresenting that its canned salmon was smoked and wild-caught, when in fact the fish was farm-raised and processed using added liquid smoke flavoring.

The plaintiff said he bought the canned fish at a higher price because he believed that the wording and images on the label were accurate. However, he claims he was misled by Bumble Bees false information, and intended that the case reach the status of class action, reported Lexology.

According to the plaintiff’s lawsuit, the medium red product he purchased looked identical to the Bumble Bee fish product labels that are in fact caught in the wild. The medium red label product uses an illustration of a fish leaping out of a body of water and uses the word “premium.” However, the plaintiff arques that the fish were farm-raised in Chile.

The Bumble Bee class action lawsuit alleged violations of the California False Advertising Law, the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act, the California Unfair Competition Law, breach of express warranty and breach of the implied warranty of merchantability.

Bumble Bee accepted a settlement  under which they agreed to:

• change the product’s packaging
• pay reasonable attorneys’ fees (between USD 30,000 and  USD 85,000) as well as an incentive award to the named plaintiffs who initiated the litigation
• not require the proposed class to release any claims for damages or personal injury.

As the parties agreed that the misleadingly labeled products are not inherently dangerous,  Bumble Bee is not obliged to remove products from the market with the old packaging.

The company has compromised to package the salmon filets with more accurate labeling beginning in the second quarter of 2018. The new packaging will specify that the product is “smoke-flavored” rather than “smoked,” omit claims that the fish is “Premium” or “Medium Red” and more accurately depict a farm-raised Coho salmon.


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Address:	Petco Park (formerly Showley Brothers Candy Factory), 900 C St
City:	San Diego
State/ZIP:	California (CA 92101)
Country:	United States
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